Setting the car alarm

Though most people wouldn’t classify downtown Phoenix as city living, there are spots that have their share of urban-city-like attributes. We have terrible traffic after games, many of us see bums and homeless constantly and most of us live next to or within earshot of a parking lot.

Me? I live next door to Lola Coffee and its parking lot. During the first few months of Lola’s opening, my open windows attracted all sorts of unwelcome noise, which consisted mainly of kids screaming and throwing around some coin-like object for hours (ding, ding, ding, ding, DINGDINGDING…yeah, see how you like it). Eventually, this wore down as either the toddler moms stopped showing up early in the morning or late at night or they finally told their kids to shut up.

But soon the noise was replaced by something marginally worse: car alarms. Now, I’m not big on looking the other way when it comes to someone’s car getting jacked, but these car alarms aren’t going off because someone is trying to steal them, they’re going off because a) the owners REPEATEDLY press the arm button as they get out of the car and b) they don’t seem to understand that opening the trunk after the alarm is armed will set it off. So, 14-15 times a day, this happens. I wish I was joking.

There’s one car in particular that I hear every morning around seven, which is now coincidentally the same time I wake up. Same 3-4 beeps, same time between those beeps and the alarm going off when the owner opens the trunk and ANOTHER 3-4 beeps when the alarm is set again. Annoying as hell? Yeah. Gets worse when my windows are open less then 75 feet from the source.

Because I have a full door that opens toward the Lola parking lot, I’ve thought many a time about throwing fruit or other messy, non-damaging object at the offending car and/or owner. But 1) that’s really mean and 2) I’m not as confident in my aim anymore, so I discarded that. Today, I decided to finally discover and confront this retarded car-alarm setter.

So I waited in my home, all the windows open, until I heard it. Quickly running downstairs, I made my way over to Lola’s under the guise of getting a nice, hot cup of not-so-great coffee. Then I saw it. Green Honda Civic, no more than a few years old. In the handicapped spot. Shit.

Now determined to out this idiot as a fraud, I hurried into the coffee shop, not caring that I looked like an idiot myself in a too-tight H&M gray sweater that fit like a women’s top and Nike shorts with a busted waistband that made them staying on difficult (oh…was also going commando), and quickly scanned the nearly-empty shop until I saw the one table taken and the one customer.

Sitting on that table was a plethora of Mac gear and a writing pad, which made me think of, well, me. No mind. This person had to be confronted, this person was obviously evil. Up toward the counter, there she was. Frumpy, pudgy and wearing sweatpants, the middle-aged lady looked toward me, beaming with a huge smile as she ordered her orange juice and latte. She was dressed in ill-fitting sweatpants and some suede jacket and had some obvious physical, possibly mental disabilities, and her smile was BEAMING.

Damn. I had nothin’. I ordered my coffee, said good morning to her on the way out and went back home, deflated. Minutes later, I heard another beep as she went back to her car. Didn’t seem so bad this time.

Moral of the story? Judge people from afar and before you know them. It’s easier that way.

Tagged as: alarm, alarms, car alarm, car alarms, cars, city living, downtown phoenix, hough, mac, parking, parking lot, security, sets, setting, spotting, urban cities